Tie Up My Hands

She decided to make him a scarf while he was away. He went away for business, said he’d be back in a few weeks. Decided to make him a scarf. She bought the wool, soft red like blood gone dry and she began. Finger knit, round and round her fingers holding rigid in the web. She always bought more wool than she needed. Having nothing else to do she kept knitting, round and round, long after the length became un-wearable. Round and round the web goes. And she knits and knits for love, waiting for him to return. She knits until the weight drags her down.

And he does return, long months later, to find his house swamped with tangle of dried blood red wool and standing on the bed it rises in a pillar, looped and twisted around a skeleton with one arm raised, fingers stiff in their web.